Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry I missed posting yesterday. I was busy cooking.

Yep. I'm thankful. All the usual stuff. health, dogs, rat, warm sweaters, house, food. yep.

I get to teach this stuff every year. And it makes me cry and my students don't understand. *Why are you crying Marjie?* Well, my little five year old friends, I am crying because we celebrate a holiday thanking god and this is right and good. Yes, my friends we should thank the Higher Powers of our lives for the good and the fruitful. We must also learn to thank our Higher Powers for things that we don't actually find so sweet. But that is a more advanced trick. Level 3 or something.
But, I digress. You see, what makes me cry is that some hundreds of men women and children left Plymouth, England and sailed for a new life in this land we now occupy. Well, by the end of their first winter here they were down by half. There were about 50 of them left. Mostly children. The children and I had a good conversation about this. See, they are five and they are invincible. So, if they were in a brave new world they would be able to do what was needed. Feed the chickens, carry wood, carry water, mind the baby, etc. They could have and they would have. But what we also read/discussed was that part of the reason our dear pilgrims made it through that first winter was that they found a stash of corn left when the indian tribe who had lived there all died of probably smallpox. No one knows. The English who had kidnapped Squanto left behind something that the native peoples of this continent had no resistance to. So, when our dear pilgrims arrived sick (scurvy) and weary and starving they discovered the stores of the decimated tribe. Would they too sicken and die. No, of course not silly. They came from the disease-ridden cities of England and they were immune. They might lose a child or two but those who grew to *manhood* were immune. So, they survive the winter thanks to the natives that they killed. (Well, okay, they didn't kill those natives personally.) And in their defense one source we read said that they agreed they must *pay* the indians back for the corn they ate. And they ate 5-6 kernels of corn a day. So they weren't having a feast. And they do set up a peace treaty with the Naragansett tribe which lasts for the next 50 years. By which time those who took part in the deal were most likely dead.
The worst part, I think, is the part where Squanto comes to the village alone. Look, he saw smoke from his old village. What would you think? Oh, sweet Mother Earth! Someone is there. Someone came back! And then he goes there and finds the same *nation* of people who had kidnapped him! What does he do? He helps them! He shows them where to hunt and how. These folks could not hunt. Even the ones who could shoot came from a place where hunting was called poaching. And it was a punishable offense. Not going out on a limb here. I don't know what the punishment was really. I seem to remember it could have been death. Not sure. If you know, tell me. So, here they are in a world without butchers or bakers or landlords and now they must hunt or starve. So, this guy, this *savage* as they called him, teaches them how to hunt, where to hunt, how to fish, how to get clams and other edible sealife. He saved their sorry asses from starvation cause they didn't even have any corn to plant and they didn't know if the seed they brought from England would grow here. Sheesh! Squanto shared with these poor slobs the bounty of his land because he did not come from a tradition where one owns the land. The bounty of the Earth was there for all to live. This as opposed to a land where shooting a rabbit for dinner got ya in big trouble. At the least the gamekeeper probably had the right to shoot you. But, do we include this information in what we generally teach children about Thanksgiving? No, not so much. But see, my kids are the indians at the big whole school feast. The threes and the fives are the indians because the indians at the first Thanksgiving outnumbered the Brits by 2-1. So, we always do a unit on who the indians were that met the pilgrims and who the indians were that lived here. Where we live. Where the Target stands. Where the fountain at the Point stands. Well, no tribe lived where the fountain at the Point stands. The land around Pittsburgh was hunting grounds for various tribes. So, while many tribes came through, set up hunting camps, fished, etc, none lived here. Huh! But we study the Iroquois Nation because there were the closest. We got this information form the Native Studies Dept at The University of Pittsburgh. I just went to my local library and asked for some help. Turned up no local tribes on maps, went to the History Museum, got given an email and a name at the Native Studies Dept. Went off email. Was given lovely information about no tirbes living on the hunting grounds and the Iroquois being indeed the closest tribe to the area. So, we learn about the Iroquois, we build long houses, we read about what they ate and played. That's important when you are five. We learn a bit about what they believe and how they worship. We let it sink in that we saved the sorry asses of those pathetic and totally unprepared Brits. And then we all remember that while we may not all actually be those Brits we actually all are European. At least this year.